- 10c, not cold enough! I want to swim again!
Another spring Saturday lunchtime and another overcast sky. The weather tried to be kind to the winter swimmers and was as wretched as possible for the duration of the competition, before reverting to sunshine later on. However, it was enough to sufficiently cool the water and the shallow pond was up to 9.5c, warm enough for those who prefer sub 4c, but still the 1km would present enough of a challenge.
As always at this venue the course was a 250m square shape with four turns. Such a tight course inevitably leads to slow times due to the difficulty of changing the direction of swimming by 180 degrees 4 times per circuit. This was enough to convince a few swimmers to opt for the 750m with no danger of missing the 22min time limit.
Just 17 starters in the 1000m, four of whom were women and three of them filled the first three places. Predictably, Aneta Lokajova (Kometa Brno) won the race to first turn buoy and from there on she gradually extended her lead to reach the finish in a time of 15m inutes exactly. After a long battle around the 4 circuits the experienced long distance swimmer Lenka Pacakova (Fides Brno) took second place in 16mins 44secs, holding off Denisa Haltmarova (PK Zabreh) by just 2 seconds. It was almost another 30 seconds before one of the men finished and that was Vlastimil Zaoral Junior (1.PKO). Englishman Jack Bright put in a sprint to make the limit by just 1 second, with only 1 swimmer behind, failing to reach the finish by the cut off time. After a remark that he was lucky today Bright decided to play the Czech lottery and promptly lost without getting a number. However he was satisfied enough as this proved that making the limit was down to his determination rather than luck.
The 750m was a different story with 24 swimmers and at the finish not a woman in sight until 14th place. Vladimir Hrbata (Fides Brno) got home first in 13min 35 sec with Tomas Kocanek (KSO Plzen) just 3 seconds behind and rueing a problem with his goggles that may have cost him victory. A notable performance came from Jiri Kurina back in fourth, using crawl more often than usual and clearly relishing the prospect of another summer of marathon swimming.
The pleasant atmosphere was savoured in the pub aftrewards in the knowledge that another seaon was almost over.
Jostling for position at the final turn buoy
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